Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T14:04:51.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Home-range use by the Central American agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) on Barro Colorado Island, Panama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Enzo Aliaga-Rossel ,
Roland W. Kays  and
José M. V. Fragoso
Enzo Aliaga-Rossel*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Environmental Sciences and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA
Roland W. Kays
Affiliation:
New York State Museum, 3140 CEC, Albany, NY 12230, USA
José M. V. Fragoso
Affiliation:
Environmental Studies Dept., University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
*
1Corresponding author. Email: enzo@hawaii.edu. Current address: 3190 Maile way- St. John 159, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigates the movements and home range of the agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. We captured and tracked 12 agoutis from January to December 2003. Home-range size (95% kernel) ranged from 1.56–2.45 ha (n = 6) for males and 1.34–1.97 ha (n = 5) for females. Agouti ranges overlapped and we estimated a density of approximately 100 agoutis km−2. We compared agouti movement with the locations of refuges and food trees, and the results suggest that the agoutis are central-place foragers. Agoutis moved an average of 850 m d−1 covering approximately 35% of their range daily. These movement data help us understand the potential impacts of agoutis as seed dispersers, predicting that D. punctata will encounter and hoard fallen fruit within 10–200 m (i.e. radius of home range) of its source, and move seeds towards refuges such as ground holes and dense vegetation around recent tree falls.

Keywords

agoutiDasyprocta punctatahabitat usehome rangemammal densitypredation riskspace use
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , July 2008 , pp. 367 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

ADLER, G. H. 1998. Impacts of resource abundance on populations of a tropical forest rodent. Ecology 79:242–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ADLER, G. H. & KESTELL, D. W. 1998. Fates of Neotropical tree seeds by spiny rats (Proechimys semispinosus). Biotropica 30:677–681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ADLER, G. H. & LEVINS, R. 1994. The island syndrome in rodent populations. Quarterly Review of Biology 64:473–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ALIAGA-ROSSEL, E. 2004. Landscape use, ecology and home range of the Agouti (Dasyprocta punctata). Masters thesis, Environmental Sciences and Forestry, State University of New York.Google Scholar
ALIAGA-ROSSEL, E., MORENO, R. S., KAYS, R. W. & GIACALONE, J. 2006. Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) predation on agouti (Dasyprocta punctata). Biotropica 38:691–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ASQUITH, N., TERBORGH, J., ARNOLD, A. & RIVEROS, M. 1999. The fruits the agouti ate: Hymenaea courbaril seed fate when its disperser is absent from Lago Guri, Venezuela. Journal of Tropical Ecology 15:229–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BLUNDELL, G. M., MAIER, J. A. K. & DEBEVEC, E. M. 2001. Linear home ranges: effects of smoothing, sample size, and autocorrelation on kernel estimates. Ecological Monographs 71:469–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BURGMAN, M. A. & FOX, C. J. 2003. Bias in species range estimates from minimum convex polygons: implications for conservation and options for improved planning. Animal Conservation 6:19–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CARR, G. M. & MACDONALD, D.W. 1986. The sociality of solitary forager: a model based on resource dispersion. Animal Behaviour 34:1540–1579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
COWLISHAW, G. 1997. Trade-offs between foraging and predation risks determine habitat use in a desert baboon population. Animal Behaviour 53:667–686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DIETRICH, W., WINDSOR, D. & DUNNE, T. 1996. Geology, climate and hydrology of Barro Colorado Island. Pp. 21–46 in Leigh, E., , Rand S., & Windsor, D. (eds.). The ecology of a tropical forest. Seasonal rhythms and long-term changes. (Second edition). Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington DC.Google Scholar
DONCASTER, C. P. & MACDONALD, D. W. 1997. Activity patterns and interactions of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in Oxford city. Journal of Zoology (London) 241:73–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EISENBERG, J. F. 1989. Mammals of the Neotropics. Vol 1. The northern Neotropics: Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. University Chicago Press, Chicago. 430 pp.Google Scholar
EISENBERG, J. F. & THORINGTON, R. W. 1973. A preliminary analysis of a Neotropical mammal fauna. Biotropica 5:150–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FORGET, P. M. 1991. Scatterhoarding of Astrocaryum paramaca by Proechimys in French Guiana: comparisons with Myoprocta exilis. Journal of Tropical Ecology 12:751–761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FOSTER, R. 1996. The seasonal rhythm of fruitfall on Barro Colorado Island. Pp. 151–172 in Leigh, E., Rand, S. & Windsor, D. (eds.). The ecology of a tropical forest. Seasonal rhythms and long-term changes. (Second edition). Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
FRAGOSO, J. M. V. 1999. Perception of scale and resource partitioning by peccaries: behavioral causes and ecological implications. Journal of Mammalogy 80:993–1003.Google Scholar
FULLER, T. K., YORK, E. C., POWELL, S. M., DECKER, T. A. & DEGRAAF, R. M. 2001. An evaluation of territory mapping to estimate fisher density. Canadian Journal of Zoology 79:1691–1696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GARANT, Y. & CRÊTE, M. 1997. Fisher, Martes pennanti, home range characteristics in a high density untrapped population in southern Quebec. Canadian Field-Naturalist 111:359–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GLANZ, W. E., THORINGTON, R., GIACALONE, J. & HEANEY, L. R. 1996. Seasonal food use and demographic trends in Sciurus granatensis. Pp. 239–252 in Leigh, E., Rand, S. & Windsor, D (eds.). The ecology of a tropical forest. Seasonal rhythms and long-term changes. (Second edition). Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
HALLWACHS, W. 1986. Agoutis (Dasyprocta punctata): the inheritors of guapinol (Hymenaea courbaril: Leguminosae). Pp. 285–304 in Estrada, A. & Fleming, D. (eds.). Frugivores and seed dispersal. Dr. Junk Publishers, Dordrecht.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HENRY, O. 1999. Frugivory and the importance of seeds in the diet of the orange-rumped agouti (Dasyprocta leporina) in French Guiana. Journal of Tropical Ecology 15:291–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JANSEN, P. A. 2003. Scatterhoarding and tree regeneration. Ecology of nut dispersal in a Neotropical rainforest. PhD thesis. Wageningen University, Wageningen. 165 pp.Google Scholar
JANSON, C. H. & EMMONS, D. L. H. 1990. Ecological structure of the non flying mammal community at Cocha Cashu biological station, Manu National Park, Peru. Pp. 314–338 in Gentry, A. (ed.). Four Neotropical rainforests. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
JETZ, W., CARBONE, C., FULFORD, J. & BROWN, J. H. 2004. The scaling of animal space use. Science 306:266–268.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
JOHNSON, D. H. 1980. The comparison of usage and availability measurements for evaluating resource preference. Ecology 61:65–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JOHNSON, D. H., KAYS, R. W., BLACKWELL, P. & MACDONALD, D. W. 2002. Does the resource dispersion hypothesis explain group living? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17:563–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JORGE, M. L. & PEREZ, C. 2005. Population density and home range size of red-rumped agoutis (Dasyprocta leporina) within and outside a natural brazil nut stand in Southeastern Amazonia. Biotropica 37: 317–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENWARD, R. E. 2001. A manual for wildlife radio tagging. Academic Press, London. 311 pp.Google Scholar
MILLSPAUGH, J. & MARZLUFF, J. 2001. Radio tracking and animal populations. Academic Press, San Diego. 474 pp.Google Scholar
MORENO, R., KAYS, R. W. & SAMUDIO, R. 2006. Competitive release in the diet of ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) and puma (Puma concolor) in the absence of jaguar (Panthera onca) in Central Panama. Journal of Mammalogy 87:808–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PERES, E., SCHIESARI, L. & DIAS-LEME, C. 1997. Vertebrate predation of Brazil-nuts (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae), an agouti-dispersed Amazonian seed crop: a test of the escape hypothesis. Journal of Tropical Ecology 13:69–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RODRIGUEZ, J. M. & VAUGHAN, C. 1985. Notas sobre la ecología de la gatuza (Dasyprocta punctata Gray) en el bosque seco tropical de Costa Rica. Brenesia 24:253–360.Google Scholar
SAMUEL, M. D., PIERCE, D. J. & GARTON, E. O. 1985. Identifying areas of concentrated use within the home range. Journal of Animal Ecology 54:711–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SEAMAN, D. E. & POWELL, R. A. 1996. An evaluation of the accuracy of kernel density estimators for home range analysis. Ecology 77:2075–2085.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SILVIUS, K. 1999. Interactions among Attalea palms, bruchids beetles, and neotropical terrestrial fruit-eating mammals: implications for the evolution of frugivory. PhD Dissertation. University of Florida, Gainesville. 202 pp.Google Scholar
SILVIUS, K. M. 2002. Spatio-temporal patterns of palm endocarp use by three Amazonian forest mammals: granivory or ‘grubivory’?. Journal of Tropical Ecology 18:707–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SILVIUS, K. & FRAGOSO, J. M. V. 2003. Red-rumped agouti (Dasyprocta leporina) home-range use in Amazonian forest: implications for the aggregated distribution of forest trees. Biotropica 35:74–83.Google Scholar
SMYTHE, N. 1978. The natural history of the Central American agouti (Dasyprocta punctata). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 257:1–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SMYTHE, N., GLANZ, W. & LEIGH, E. 1996. Population regulation in some terrestrial frugivores. Pp. 227–238 in Leigh, E., Rand, S. & Windsor, D. (eds.). The ecology of a tropical forest. Seasonal rhythms and long-term changes. (Second edition). Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
TERBORGH, J. 1986. Keystone plant resources in the tropical forest. Pp. 330–344 in Soulé, M. E. (ed.). Conservation biology. The science of scarcity and diversity. Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland.Google Scholar
TERBORGH, J., LOPEZ, L., NUÑEZ, P., RAO, M., SHAHABUDDIN, G., ORIHUELA, G., RIVEROS, M., ASCANIO, R., ADLER, G. H., LAMBERT, T. D. & BALBAS, L. 2001. Ecological meltdown in predator-free forest fragments. Science 294:1923–1926.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
WRIGHT, J., GOMPPER, M. & DE LEON, B. 1994. Are large predators keystone species in Neotropical forest? The evidence from Barro Colorado Island. Oikos 71:279–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
YLONEN, H., PECH, R. & DAVIS, S. 2003. Heterogeneous landscapes and the role of refuge on the population dynamics of a specialist predator and its prey. Evolutionary Ecology 17:349–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar